This is real, and lasting.

I needed to write another blog. My fingers have been rapping the keyboard all day, wanting to, but I held off. Then I decided that it is MY blog, so why not?

My favorite CD of the year arrived on my doorstep this past weekend, which meant it was waiting for me on my desk, where my family lovingly put it for me. It was a beautiful sight when I walked in at 3 in the morning, just to see that brown paper package, with my name on it, holding a prize.

Falling Up is the name of the band. There new CD is called "Your Sparkling Death Cometh". They are my favorite band, hands down. The genius behind it is Jesse Ribordy, the lead singer, and reason the band exists. I have not heard any other person's music that makes me feel like his creations make me feel. They carry me into a place that has a hidden location, access granted only to the few and the proud who listen to his music.

So, buy their new album. Buy all of Falling Up's CDs. And, are they Christian? Yes, yes they are. :)
First track on the new album.


In other news, while talking to my friend, and unofficially adopted brother, Matt, I seem to have inspired him to pursue a healthier lifestyle (he already seems healthy, just to be clear). This is exciting, and not to make it all about me, but...it is exciting to invoke that kind of response. He had asked me to share what was behind my new pursuit of becoming a dietitian. When I shared the large nutshell of my story, he responded by saying that he wanted to start making some changes also. The intent of sharing my story had not been to create a stir in him, so it made me happy to know that it is easier and more natural to help others want to make changes than I thought previously. All I have to do is be my honest self (thanks again, Mister Rogers), because that is what God has given me.

Another happening is that while at the gym today, I was watching a commercial break, and a commercial that I immediately perceived to be pretty perverse started playing. I stared at the wall in front of me, and felt my eyebrows narrowing downward. I'm disgusted, I thought. My reaction was a little surprising, but not as much as the feelings that suddenly seemed to be deposited in me by an outside source.

I'm hanging out with some teenage girls tomorrow afternoon. A couple of them were at the summer camp I helped lead last summer. We're friends of Facebook, and I have seen how much perverse worldly ideals impact them, and I also saw it firsthand last summer.

Staring at the gym wall, those girls were suddenly brought to my mind, and I saw how serious it was that they were being so influenced by perverse ways, and how they had been taught to embrace these ways. The same thing that the girls were dealing with was in that commercial, and I was immediately grieved, and VERY angry. I was jogging on the treadmill, and I started upping my pace so that I was running, feeling like I had to be moving faster in order to thrash any appearance of perverseness away from those precious girls. They have no idea how their futures will most certainly be affected if they continue to acknowledge worldly ideals as normal, and just a way of being young.

It made me so upset, and I knew that Jesus was showing me something that He felt everyday. These feelings, this uncontrollable need to CARE, this was not me. It felt the same as when I was in South Georgia this last weekend, and I started yelling at all those people in that church. It was not something that came naturally to me everyday, especially lately, since I've let go of trying to make myself do anything spiritual on my own. This was Jesus, taking the lead that I have finally given to Him. It is so much better, and easier, than trying to care all by myself. This is Him revealing His heart to me. This is real, and lasting.

This is such a cliche, but...

HALLELUJAH!

and I'll just throw it in there...

WOOT WOOT!